


woke up with empty arms

by bookishgypsy



Category: Dynasty (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, sorry in advance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-29 17:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20439611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookishgypsy/pseuds/bookishgypsy
Summary: It’s the kind of thing you hear about all the time on the news, you just never expect it to actually happen to you. Fallon/Liam. Oneshot.





	woke up with empty arms

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y’all. This is a fic I’ve wanted to write for years, but could never really figure out a format/make it work with another ship, or even just never had the confidence in myself to write it. But, I wrote it for these two! It’s based off the song ‘Love Lives On’ by Mallory Hope which is hauntingly beautiful but I’d suggest not listening until after you read if you plan to listen, otherwise, you’ll spoil the ending for yourself.
> 
> Alright enjoy and please don’t kill me!
> 
> ((And a special shout-out to Eliza for reading this before I posted to make sure it all made sense.))

** _six days_ **

It’d been oddly cool in Atlanta for November.

Atlanta surely had it’s cool winters’, but it’d been colder than normal; at least ten degrees below average, she thinks, not that she’d bother to actually fact check that information.

It’d been dipping into the low 30’s at night, at least, she figures but she hadn’t been checking the temperature. Her mind had been elsewhere. The air was crisp and cool, the leaves were starting to change color - greens and oranges and yellows and reds all pigmented in the trees outside. They didn’t get a fall foliage as beautiful as up North, but she always loved the way the leaves changed colors, even if Atlanta only got a small taste of it.

She can see the sun just starting to rise outside their window, surprised to see it trying to make an appearance this morning, thought she knows it won’t last long. It’d been dark and gloomy, cloudy. She’d barely seen the sun since last month; it’d only peep out at various points of the day, only to be covered up again by the grey clouds that loomed over the city. She feels a chill move throughout her body at the coolness of the air; she shivers at the loss of warmth from the body next to her, having seemingly moved away from him in her nights sleep. She reaches down for the comforter, pulling it up to her neck and turning on her side to reach out for him.

_“S’cold.”_

_Liam wraps her up into his embrace quickly, her head settling on his chest, his arm comfortably resting on her hip. Fallon feels him press a chaste kiss against her forehead, mumbling, “It’s the middle of winter, babe. Of course it’s cold.”_

_“Well, I don’t like it.”_

_She can feel the boy next to her pull the covers up higher around their bodies, pulling her as close to his body as he can possibly get her, rubbing his hand up and down her back in attempt to warm up her cool body. Her limbs curl around him almost instinctively, head falling against his shoulder; it’s instinctual how easily they can get themselves comfortable against each other, how their bodies knew exactly where to go, how they knew each other like the back of their hands._

_His warmth takes the chill from her body almost instantly, his arms wrapped around her in a way that made her feel like she could never be touched if she was right here with him._

_“I love you,” she mumbles against him._

_His lips press against her forehead in the darkness, echoing the words she just said to him back at her, bringing her a kind of ease within herself she didn’t know was possible._

But she’s met with nothing when her hand falls flat against the mattress and her eyes spring open at the lack of contact, finding the spot beside her is completely barren, completely and utterly empty of anything; _anyone_.

And everything sinks in all over again.

Everything from the past six days falls around her like a rainstorm, drenching her to the core in absolute sadness at the prospect of him not being in bed with her, not _being _with her.

His side of the bed was empty, his side of the bed would always be empty.

She curls up with the comforter, trying to give herself the warmth that she so desperately sought from _him_, the warmth that couldn’t be replaced by anything else but curling up next to him.

But the white blanket was all she had this time.

She tries to let her eyes flutter shut, tries to stop everything from crashing down around her once more, but sleep wouldn’t come to her again and she _knows_ it, but she already feels the tears brimming in her eyes again, countless times she’s dealt with the overwhelming emotions this week; she swears she feels her heart crack a little more inside her chest again as the tears freely make their way down her checks, staining the pillow with little drops of salty water.

Liam wasn’t _here_.

He wasn’t coming back this time.

//

She stirs awake a few hours later, tears staining her pillow until she finally became to tired to cry anymore, succumbing to sleep against her mattress. She tries to adjust to the new normal, waking up without his arms curled around her, and pushes herself to get out of bed and make her way down towards the kitchen.

She steps into the vast, brightly lit, open space, her feet taking her straight to the coffee pot; a routine her body was all to familiar with at this point. She puts fresh water in the machine, filling the small compartment with ground coffee beans and letting it do it’s job, starting to brew her fresh pot of coffee that she so desperately craved each morning.

She retreats herself backwards and settles herself on one of the barstools at the island in the center of the room and immediately notices the silence, the soundless room haunting her.

And how terrifyingly quiet it was without him here with her.

_She dredges her way down towards their kitchen, towards the loud noises erupting from there. Pots and pans banging against each other, and the closer she got the clearer she could hear the curses coming from his mouth. She turns the corner, seeing him bent over on the floor in his pajamas, looking through the cupboard of all their pans, shoving each one off to the side in a clear search for the one he so desperately needed._

_“Liam, what the hell are you doing?”_

_“Fal,” he greets her, standing up fully to kiss her good morning. “I’m looking for the waffle iron.”_

_“The waffle iron? Liam, it’s seven in the morning.”_

_“I’m trying to make us breakfast.”_

_“Does it have to be this early?” Fallon puts her hands on her hips questioning his actions, but he can’t see her, head buried into the cabinet. “And this loud?”_

_“I just wanted it to be special. And ready for you when you woke up,” he says softly, coming up close to her to take her hands in his. He presses a kiss against her forehead, tender and pure. “It is our anniversary after all.”_

_She can’t hide the smile that starts forming. Because he remembered. He always remembered. She’s not sure why she ever doubted he would. It was _Liam. _Liam wasn’t like the rest. He’d keep celebrating all their milestones no matter how long they’d been together._

_“It’s in the pantry.”_

_She sees the lightbulb go off in his head as she says it, hands slipping out of hers to open the door behind him. He looks over his shoulder at her mumbling, “What would I do without you?”_

_“You’d be pretty lost,” she agrees, grinning as he steps out of the dark closet with the desired item in hand, placing it against their countertops and plugging the machine in the electrical outlet, red light indicating it had been turned on. “You woke me up you know.”_

_“Did I? I’m sorry, babe.”_

_“No, you’re not.”_

_She gives up the idea of going back to bed and puts the pot of coffee on for the two of them, grabbing two mugs from the cabinet above her, the L and F lettered mugs lined perfectly behind the glass door. She settles down at their island, waiting for the hot liquid to finish brewing and he quickly settles beside her, immediately bringing his hand to the base of her neck, squeezing gently._

_“So, I was thinking.”_

_“That’s never good,” she mutters as his eyes narrow in on hers at the tone of her comment, her undeniable need to always answer back sarcastically, but he ignores it other than the look._

_“What do you think about a destination wedding?”_

_She eyes him carefully. “I’m listening.”_

_“Hawaii? The Caribbean?”_

She shakes her herself out of the memory when she hears the water start fizzling and sputtering, the last of it running through the fresh ground beans into the clear glass coffee pot. She takes the freshly brewed liquid and pours it into the mugs laid out in front of her and it’s not until she looks down at the quartz countertop, seeing two mugs filled to the brim with dark black coffee, that she realizes what she’s done.

** _six weeks_ **

Laundry was a _lot_ harder than Liam actually made it look.

‘Cause he always just…._did_ it. And he didn’t complain, didn’t make a fuss about it. He always just took control of it for her because he knew she hated making messes and truthfully, he knew deep down she wouldn’t even bother to touch it and if he _didn’t_ take control of it, the laundry would have never get done.

(Pretty pathetic that at thirty years old she could barely operate a washing machine and a dryer on her own now.)

Plus, Liam had this whole idea of them _not_ hiring a staff in their new home together. He’d said it made it impersonal and he wanted it to just be _them, _to just have everything be _their_ space. She couldn’t argue with the idea (that’s a lie, she _did_ argue it, she’d just lost the battle), and no matter how much the thought of chores bored her, she’d had to admit that it was really nice to always come home to a house with _just_ her husband in it; to not have random people wandering about their home in the middle of the day or the middle of the night.

_She’d walked in the front door after a long day at her office, the only thing she’d wanted to come home to was him, to curl up on the couch beside him and watch a movie or some random TV show, to let her eyes close slowly against him and take comfort in the warmth of his embrace._

_“Liam?”_

_“In the laundry room!”_

_She drops her purse and slips her shoes off by the door, making her way down the narrow hallway towards the voice that just called out for her._

_“Hey, babe,” he greets when she turns the corner. She just walks straight to him and despite him being in the middle of folding a towel, she shuffles her way under his arms, tucking her head in the crevice of his neck. He’s surprised, she can tell by his reflexes, the way he drops the towel and immediately curls his arms around her tightly. “Hey, is everything okay?”_

_“Yeah,” she sighs, bringing her arms to wrap around his lower back. “It was just a really long day.”_

_“Wanna make something quick for dinner and watch a movie?”_

_She loved how he always seem to know exactly what she wanted, exactly what she needed. There was never a time he didn’t; she swears he knew her better than she actually knew herself.It was scary, really, how someone held that much power over her. That he knew he so well and they didn’t know what the future held and letting him in like this could break her heart into pieces at the end of the finish line. It was terrifying, but something about being with him completely calmed her._

_She nods against him silently, feeling his lips press against the side of her head before he pulls back and cups her face in both his hands, pressing his lips against hers in a chaste kiss._

She lets the flashback fade away like a fog lifting on the coast in the early morning when her phones ringtone echoes throughout the small room.

_Laura Van Kirk’s _name flashes against her lock screen, a picture of _them _at their wedding, haunting her yet filling with her with some sort of comfort every time she looked at it. She couldn’t bring herself to change it, no matter how much it hurt to look at; she’s not sure if she’d ever be able to.

“Hi, Laura.”

It’s weird after everything that’d happened in the last six weeks, she’d gained a friendship with Laura Van Kirk of all people. It’s not something she’d ever really pictured happening. _Ever_. And sure, they’d been on _better _terms since her marriage to her son, but it wasn’t by any means a _friendship_. It was just being civil and friendly with each other for the sake of Liam; the one thing they seemed to agree on.

The blondes voice breaths the receiving end, “How are you holding up over there?”

“I mean, not well,” she sighs, honestly. “But, I’m trying.”

“Well, that’s all we can do right now.”

“I really wish he was around do the laundry for me,” she laughs into the empty room, the sound echoing off the white tiled floor in her laundry room. “He never taught me how to do it because he didn’t want me to worry about it and now I’m clueless to how these stupid machines actually work.”

“That sounds like my stubborn boy. And stubborn he was,” Laura says quietly. “Trying to not make you worry about doing all the little things around the house.”

“Yeah, but now I don’t know how to do it without him,” she says into her speaker “I didn’t realize it was this difficult!”

She hears Laura laugh in the background before replying with, “Do I have to come over and teach you how to do your own laundry?”

“You don’t _have to,_” she says. “But I wouldn’t deny the help if that’s what you’re getting at.”

She catches a glance at the calendar besides the dryer, noticing the the circled date is four days behind her. She pauses, ignoring whatever question or statement Laura had just said, letting herself put the pieces together when she steps in front of the wall length mirror.

“Fallon?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” She shakes her head of the haze she let herself get wrapped up in. “Sorry.”

She turns to her side, rests her hand against the flat of her stomach and wonders.

** _six months_ **

The dark angry sky growls in the middle of the night, jolting her awake from her steady sleep. The lightening crackles in the distance, the giant bolt lighting up the darkness she lies in.

She’s gotten better at dealing with the storms, the heaviness and anxiety that came with each rumble that sounded in the distance; sure she still had her pills, but Liam was always there to hold her close and make her feel safe.

_She reaches out and grasps onto his hand tightly as soon as she hears the loud cracking in the distance, her fear of thunderstorms still just as strong as it was when she was a kid; she wondered if it’d ever go away, sometimes it felt like it wouldn’t, sometimes it felt like it only got worse._

_He’s awake within seconds, he always was when there was a storm. He pulls her stark against his body and she curls into him instinctively, their bodies familiar with each and every curve of each other. Her forehead rests against the warmth of the crevice of his neck, her body tense at the inevitable sounds and light coming their way._

_“I’m here,” he mutters against her forehead, the roaring sky getting louder in volume at each rumble. “I’m right here, okay?”_

_She feels his lips press against the top of her head in a lingering kiss, the action louder and stronger than any storm could ever be. His heart beats steadily against her, calming her ever-budding nerves, keeping her from letting everything spiral out of control._

But he wasn’t here anymore to do that. 

She reaches to his, _her,_ nightstand and finds the medication she’d been prescribed as a child to help keep her calm during the anxieties that came with the stormy weather. She chases it with a few sips of water, curling back into her spot on the bed; she curls her body around the pillow on the left side of the bed - his side - and tries her best to imagine it’s him their holding her close, not the warm summer air floating in the atmosphere.

//

The last thing she wants to do is clean out his closet, it’s the last bit of blind faith she’s been living on, hoping that one day he might miraculously come back to her; that one day she’d walk through the front door and he’d be sitting on the couch watching those old comedies he loved so much like nothing ever happened, they’d go back to living like everything was before it all went downhill.

But her therapist told her it was time, that she was just diving herself further and further into a depression and it was the first step she needed to take to move on, to _try _to move on; no matter how badly she wished she didn’t have to.

Just opening the stark white doors and looking at his clothes lined up perfectly makes her want to break down in tears. But, she had to do this, she had to move forward and she had to stay strong during the process, even if it was really fucking hard. 

She starts at the right end of his closet; the blue shirt he’d wore when they took the canoe out on the lake and she’d proposed to him sticks out against the brightest of colors, the jacket he wore on the night they first met sits beside it, the day he strutted up to her outside city hall and all but turned her whole world around in a matter of seconds.

But then she see _it_.

That dumb old ripped up t-shirt he’d straight up refused to get rid of despite her best efforts.

_“Where the hell do you think that t-shirts going?”_

_“With us to our new house.”_

_“No,” she mutters, moving to grab the piece of cotton from him, but he pulls back from her and shuffles himself backwards on the floor inching himself away from her. “Absolutely not.”_

_“Excuse me?” He holds the piece of fabric close to him, out of reach for her to grab. “This is my favorite shirt.”_

_“Well, it’s disgusting and it’s not coming with us.”_

_She inches closer to him again to grab at it, but he’s too quick for her movements. _

_“Liam, seriously? It’s all ripped up. There’s holes in it!”_

_“I don’t care, it’s coming with us.”_

_She sees this brutally honest tactic isn’t getting her anywhere, so tries a different direction. She moves closer towards him, making sure he notices all her best angles as she flaunts herself in front of him, pressing her lips against his tightly when she reaches him in the middle. She moves her lips against his easily, their movements with each other so instinctual and simple and so very easy. She deepens the kiss then, sliding her tongue in his mouth and tangling hers with his, just as she slips her hand behind his back in an attempt to snatch the shirt from his grasp._

_But she she feels his hand on hers, pushing her back and grinning at the obvious pout on her face._

_“Nice try, babe,” he grins. “But if you think I don’t know your ways by now you’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that.”_

_“Liam,” she groans._

_“The shirt is coming with us.”_

She packs up most of his belongings, packs up his clothes into cardboard boxes and moves them to the attic: out of sight and out of mind, at least she hopes. It’s kind of sad looking into the now empty space on his side of their walk-in closet. And she’s sure some people will try to get her to see the optimistic side of it all: that she had a whole additional closet for _her _own clothes and shoes now, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at that way.

It was _his _space and it always would be.

There was only _one_ thing she couldn’t bare to stuff up in the dark, dusty attic.

She holds the crumpled, dirty, ripped up t-shirt of his in her hand, tucking it in tightly to her nightstand drawer on the side of her bed. It might be a small thing, but it made her feel like she was still connected to him in some weird way, like he was still here with her.

It’s funny how the one thing she used to hate so much is now the one thing of his she can’t bring herself to throw away.

** _six years_ **

She steps out of her black SUV, heels clicking against the cement ground as she rounds towards the back to open the door, reaching for the small hand already held out in her direction. The other small hand holds on to the tiny bouquet of flowers she’d picked from their garden just that morning. Orange and pink and yellow daisies, all tied up with a little white string.

“You ready?”

“Yeah! Let’s go see daddy!”

She adores the innocence that glimmers in her eyes, loves the way she’s so positive through all of this, even though she’s just nearing six years old and couldn’t possibly understand what it all really means. That this wasn’t what _going to see daddy _meant for everyone, that this wasn’t the normal and most kids her age would go home every night to a loving father _living_ in their home.

Her daughters little hand squeezes on to hers as they walk down that all too familiar pathway, trees towering over the both of them, shading the pair of them as they walked together underneath the height of them.

Leia’s hand detaches from hers the moment she sees it, setting off in the direction that’s become all too hauntingly familiar to her; to both of them. She follows behind her daughter slowly and she swears the air leaves her lungs when she steps forward in front of the stone.

** _Liam Ridley_ **

** _Loving son, husband and father_ **

** _June 23rd 1990 - January 18th 2022_ **

_She stares at the clocks red lights, watching as the lines move from one hour to the next, indicating he’d been gone for two hours now, off picking them up some takeout for dinner, much longer than he needed to be._

_But he shouldn’t _still_ be out, that was the thing, he should have been back in a half hour, forty-five minutes tops considering Atlanta’s traffic that seemed to be constant, endless and bothering. But when that clock indicated she’d been waiting two whole hours for him to return, she was starting to get seriously concerned and she willed her mind to not go to the darkest of places._

_She’d texted him an hour ago asking him where the hell he was and to hurry the hell back, that she was starting to worry, but he’d never sent her a message back. And sure, Liam wasn’t the best of texters, but he never left a message from her unanswered; always sure to respond to her and keep her in the loop of what was going on._

_But it’s then when her phone lights up with a call from a number that she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know why she picks up, she never picks up from telemarketers, but something inside her tells her she needs to pick this one up, that she’d regret it if she didn’t_

_She answers with a, “Hello?”_

_“Mrs. Ridley?”_

_“Yeah, this is she.”_

_The lady on the other end of the call clears her throat before continuing, “Mrs. Ridley, I’m gonna need you to come down to the Piedmont Atlanta immediately.”_

_And just like that a pit of nerves sinks in her stomach._

_“What? Why? What’s going on?”_

_“It’s your husband,” the voice responds calmly. “There’s been an accident.”_

_“What do you mean?” She’s frantic, already slipping on the pair of shoes by the door and grabbing her car keys, slipping out of the door before she’s even finished the call. “Is he okay?”_

_She can hear the despair in the woman’s voice when she sighs before responding with: “A drunk driver ran a red light.”_

_She turns the key in her ignition, speeding off down the road and rushing in to the emergency room doors barely twenty minutes later, hurries to the front desk with two women behind it._

_“Where’s my husband?”_

_“What’s your husbands’ name?”_

_“Liam. Liam Ridley.”_

_The receptionist’s face falls, a sort of pity beaming in her eyes before she looks up at her and says, “Let me go get his doctor.”_

_She stands, shifting her weight uncomfortably from her left to right foot while she waits for his doctor to make an appearance, but then she hears the male’s voice call for her just a few feet away, stepping out of the doors that lead to the ER’s examining rooms._

_“Mrs. Ridley.”_

_“How is he? Is he okay?”_

_“Mrs. Ridley, your husband suffered a direct hit to the drivers side of his vehicle.”_

_“I don’t care,” she shouts at the short blonde haired man in front of her. “Just tell me how he is!”_

_“Mrs. Ridley…”_

_“No,” she steps back at the tone of his voice; the sadness, the pity, the calm and gentle way he’s trying to get her to understand what he’s trying to say. The moment she finally does. “No. No, he’s not. He’s not gone.”_

_“I’m sorry, Mrs. Ridley. Your husband didn’t make it.”_

_She feels the air leave her lungs and she swears she can’t breathe; the room feels like it’s closing in on her, the four walls inching closer and closer to her as she gasps for a breath. She lets the news wash over her, crushing her like a strong and powerful wave, sinking to her knees on the hard tiled floor as the tears no longer have a reason to hide behind her eyes._

She takes in a sharp breath and the air in her lungs escapes her like it did each time she came face to face with his gravestone, just like it did six years ago when she walked into that emergency room and received the fateful news. She wondered if that’d ever change, if it’d ever get easier or if it’d always be this hard. Surely, it had to get better, eventually, it couldn’t always be this exhausting and draining could it?

Leia’s tiny hand drops from hers when she sees the familiar sight, running up towards the grey stone and dropping to her knees, muttering an excited ‘hi, daddy,’ when she places the pink and yellow and orange bouquet on the ground in front of her amongst the other flowers already there.

She gathers up the courage to be as brave as her daughter and steps forward; one foot in front of the other, she reminds herself and when she sinks to her knees besides her daughter, it’s hard to keep the tears at bay when she allows reality to really sink in.

“Oh, Liam,” she breaths, hand coming up to rest against the cool stone. “I miss you _so _much.”

Leia’s little hand rests against her arm as soon as she notices the clear liquid streaming down her cheeks, “Don’t be sad, mommy.”

“It’s hard not to be sad, sweetie,” she says sadly, letting her hand rest against her daughters’ much smaller one. “I wish your dad could be here with us.”

“But, he’s always with us, mommy,” the small voice replies, so positive and so strong. She admires that about her daughter. It was one of the few things she took after _her _for, otherwise, she was a mini-Liam through and through. “He’s watching over us all the time.”

She’s not sure how such a small, young body could be so optimistic, could be so willing to look at the good side of things when she was ready to break down at almost every turn. Leia’s little hazel eyes find hers in the soft sunlight under the tall oak tree, the color identical to Liam’s; so much so that for a second she wonders if it’s him in there staring back at her.

“You have his eyes you know.”

Her bright eyes look up at her, beaming with excitement at the thought of sharing traits with a father she’d never know. “I do?”

“You do.”

She sees the pondering look in the little girls’ face, the back and forth if she should say what she was about to; for whatever reason she does ask and she’s so glad she does.

“What was daddy like?”

“Your father was…” Fallon trails off softly. She could go on and on for hours about her daughters’ father, but now wasn’t the time to overwhelm her - that could wait ‘till she was older. “He was amazing.”

“He was?”

“He was,” she replies. “He saw the good in everything. In everyone. He always looked at the positives and tried to make any situation better. He was kind and generous and he loved so deeply.”

“I wish I could’ve met him.”

“I wish that, too,” she smiles down at the little face that shared so many features with her late-husband. She squeezes her hand lightly, deciding they’ve both shared enough sadness for the day before proposing her with a question she know will have a positive response. “What do you say we go get some ice cream?”

“Yeah!”

Leia’s two little feet start running back towards her car at that and she stands up, too. She takes a few steps away before turning her head to get one last look at the sight of his gravestone behind her. She hopes Leia was right. She hopes he was watching them smiling down proudly, watching their every move and keeping them safe and protected.

She hopes he was proud of _her_.


End file.
